What bar has been set for consumer loans?

Banks lost the fight to offer consumers consumer loans at slightly higher rates. True, even at today’s “low” prices, they are reluctant to borrow from them.

Photo: Alexander Shcherbak, Kommersant / buy photo

From July 1, when setting consumer loan rates, banks will have to rely on the weighted average total cost of credit (WLC), calculated by the Central Bank. For the third quarter, the Central Bank determined that for car loans this figure is either 21.8% (for new cars) or 29.9% per annum (for used cars). For credit cards, depending on the amount of the limit - the weighted average PSC ranges from 23.7% to 28%, for non-targeted cash loans, depending on the amounts and terms - from 22.1% to 43% and for loans in stores - from 31.6 % to 48.6%. Bank loan rates will be able to exceed these figures by no more than 30% (that is, less than a third). Thus, the most expensive loan issued in a store will bring the bank 63.18% per annum.

Bankers have been fighting for a long time for the opportunity to raise the limit of permissible interest rates. First, they asked the Central Bank to count loans to salary clients separately from loans to street clients, then they proposed not to take into account the rates of state banks in the PSK. But in neither case did they achieve anything. According to experts, the latter measure would increase the rate by about 2 percentage points. And the corresponding amendment seemed to have even been included in the final version of the bill for consideration by the Duma, but, according to the Kommersant newspaper, it was crossed out at the last moment on the initiative of the presidential administration.

This story could be considered a serious defeat for banks involved in consumer lending, if there were still reasons to consider this segment of the banking business itself promising. In the first four months, the consumer loan portfolios of the 200 largest Russian banks lost more than 500 billion rubles. The Central Bank, just as it set a course several years ago to cool the consumer loan market, has not deviated from it, despite the crisis. In a word, a direction that is currently being actively curtailed without any outside help is under threat.

It is also worth considering that the draconian bar, which will be introduced on July 1, does not limit rates on mortgage loans in any way, and for the cheapest loans - for new cars - allows banks to set the rate at a level above 28% per annum. Today there are unlikely to be many people willing to borrow money from a bank at such interest rates, so their potential increase would most likely not give any advantage to credit institutions.

MAXIM BUILOV

The stakes have eased in the fight